News

Summaries of open source, health care, or health IT news and information from various sources on the web selected by Open Health News (OHNews) staff. Links are provided to the original news or information source, e.g. news article, web site, journal,blog, video, etc.

See the following -

Umati Final Report Released

Angela Odour | Ushahidi | June 28, 2013

A project by iHub Research and Ushahidi, Umati was born out of the influence social media was seen to have had on the 2007/8 post election violence. [...] Read More »

UN Shows How Mobile-Phone Data Can Map Human Need

Jan Piotrowski | SciDev.Net | September 12, 2013

Tracking people’s movements after the Haiti earthquake, mapping malaria spread in Kenya, evaluating Mexico’s government policies on flu outbreak, improving national census surveys in Latin America and Africa… These are just a few examples of how mobile-phone data has been used in development, as highlighted by a recent UN report. Read More »

Uncontrolled Health Care Costs Traced to Data and Communication Failures

Andy Oram | EMR & EHR | April 13, 2016

The previous section of this article provided whatever detail I could find on the costs of poor communications and data exchange among health care providers. But in truth, it’s hard to imagine the toll taken by communications failures beyond certain obvious consequences, such as repeated tests and avoidable medical errors. One has to think about how the field operates and what we would be capable of with proper use of data. As patients move from PCP to specialist, from hospital to rehab facility, and from district to district, their providers need not only discharge summaries but intensive coordination to prevent relapses. Our doctors are great at fixing a diabetic episode or heart-related event...

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Under The Surface, Microsoft's ARM Tablet Is A Terrible Mistake

A.T. Faust III | AppAdvice.com | July 3, 2012

Unhappy with Microsoft’s intended release of a direct hardware competitor, HP has reportedly withdrawn its support for the Windows on ARM RT (or “WART”) platform. The sages at SemiAccurate acerbically explain the whole ugly affair: "…Microsoft just unveiled one of the largest and most unethical industrial espionage campaigns of the last few decades, so it is no surprise that everyone is jumping ship."...

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Under Tight Budgets, Public Health Spending Falls For First Time

Jay Hancock | Kaiser Health News | January 7, 2013

Policymakers took heart from another year of relatively slow health-spending growth in 2011, documented by government statisticians and disclosed in a report Monday. But one aspect of moderating health expenditures — and the only category showing outright decline — could cost more than it saves. Read More »

Understanding Cancer Risk: The Paradox Of Modern Health

Barry Boyd | Cancer: Beyond Conventional Therapy | August 27, 2013

It is important to understand risk and why Americans have a particular difficulty with the issue of cancer risk. Read More »

Understanding Effect of EHR Usability on Clinical Workflows

Sara Heath | EHR Intelligence | August 26, 2016

As EHR use becomes ubiquitous in the healthcare industry, questions about EHR usability come into play. Read More »

UNESCO Partners With Nature Education And Roche To Launch The World Library Of Science: A Free Online Science Education Resource

Press Release | UNESCO, Nature Education, Roche | November 7, 2014

UNESCO launched the UNESCO World Library of Science (WLoS), a newly created, free online science education resource for a global community of users. Developed through the joint efforts of UNESCO, Nature Education and Roche, the WLoS was created to give students around the world, especially those in disadvantaged regions, access to the latest science information as well as the opportunity to share their experiences and learning through discussion with their peers in a shared learning environment... Read More »

Unexpected Martyr For The Open-Access Movement

Jon Marcus | Times Higher Education | January 24, 2013

The suicide of a radical advocate of open access to academic research has elevated the topic to the forefront of conversation in the US, and could ultimately widen the availability of documents and prompt copyright reform. Read More »

Unhappy Lawmakers Take Aim At VA, DoD Plans To Nix Joint EHR

Jennifer Bresnick | EHR Intelligence | February 8, 2013

After the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense announced plans to scale back costs by scrapping plans to create an entirely new EHR system shared between the two organizations, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle expressed disappointment and frustration... Read More »

UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake and WHO Director-General Margaret Chan on the Cholera Outbreak in Yemen as Suspected Cases Exceed 200,000

Press Release | UNICEF | June 24, 2017

“The rapidly spreading cholera outbreak in Yemen has exceeded 200,000 suspected cases, increasing at an average of 5,000 a day. We are now facing the worst cholera outbreak in the world. “In just two months, cholera has spread to almost every governorate of this war-torn country.  Already more than 1,300 people have died – one quarter of them children – and the death toll is expected to rise...

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Unicef Is Funding Blockchain and Health Tech to Solve the World’s Biggest Problems

Mark Burgess | WIRED | November 15, 2016

The United Nations has announced the first five startups to receive investment through its its $9 million (£7.2m) innovation fund. Unicef, the UN's children's charity, will be giving seed funding to companies working to create affordable mobile connectivity, blockchain in childhood development, data collection in maternal care, and technology to help improve literacy skills. The funding comes as part of Unicef's Innovation Fund – launched in February – and will see the organisation put up to $100,000 into each of the five firms...

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Unintentional Benefits Of Open Access: The Broader Impact Of Making Publications Free

Atif Kukaswadia | PLOS.org | December 10, 2012

[...] But now we’ve moved into a world where everything is done electronically. Through the power of PubMed, Google Scholar and numerous others, you can obtain PDFs of many articles via your institution. And now, many of those articles are available under Open Access rules – so anyone can access them, regardless of academic affiliation. [...] Read More »

United Kingdom Eyes VA’s Electronic Health Record

Bob Brewin | Nextgov | March 25, 2013

The Veterans Affairs Department and the United Kingdom’s National Health Service have teamed up to share ideas, strategies and leadership for development of health information technology, opening the possibility that the NHS could use VA’s electronic health record system. Peter Levin, the former VA Chief Technology Officer who retired this month, told Nextgov the Pentagon also should adopt VA electronic health record. Read More »

UnitedHealth Recalls Digital Health Record Software

Jordan Robertson | Bloomberg | September 10, 2013

UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH) has recalled software used in hospital emergency departments in more than 20 states because of an error that caused doctor’s notes about patient prescriptions to drop out of their files. Read More »